


A Stranger Comes Home

by icewhisper



Series: Fake Maes AU [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But he suffers for it, F/M, Gen, Maes Hughes Lives, Multi, all the ships are really only mentioned, so is Maes since...well look what series you're reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23155564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icewhisper/pseuds/icewhisper
Summary: Her husband went to work that morning, but the person that came home wasn’t her husband.(Gracia figures it out.)
Relationships: Gracia Hughes & Elicia Hughes, Gracia Hughes/Maes Hughes, Gracia Hughes/Maes Hughes/Roy Mustang, Gracia Hughes/Roy Mustang
Series: Fake Maes AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1625317
Comments: 8
Kudos: 41





	A Stranger Comes Home

Elicia woke up in tears, utterly inconsolable, as she clung to her mother and begged for Daddy. Gracia kissed her head, murmuring softly, but her eyes still drifted to the little pink clock on the wall. Little hand on the eleven and big hand on the ten, she thought, as if she were teaching Elicia the time. It was nearly midnight and Maes still wasn’t home.

He’d said that morning he might have to work late and he  _ had  _ called around five to say he didn’t think he’d be home for bedtime, but it wasn’t like him to work that late without calling. If Roy were in Central, sure – the two of them were notorious for diving head first into something and only coming out of it when Riza dragged them out and sent them home – but Roy was still in East City until the end of the week, at least.

Lips pressed to Elicia’s head, she wondered if Maes had caught a late train, but… No. She knew he’d considered it, because he’d wanted to help Roy pack up his apartment, but he’d said he had too much going on in his own department for him to get away with leaving for a few days. Besides, as much as her husband could get into his own head sometimes, he wouldn’t have just left without telling her. He’d surprise Roy with a visit to watch him twitch, but he wouldn’t leave Central without at least  _ calling _ .

Elicia whimpered again, another muffled  _ I want Daddy _ against her shirt, and her heart ached.

“He’ll be home soon,” she promised. “Daddy had a lot of work to do, remember?”

Elicia nodded, miserable, against her. “Want him now,” she insisted anyway, “and Papa.”

“Papa’s going to be here soon, too,” she assured her. “How about this? Tomorrow, you and I will draw a big picture for Papa that he can keep at his apartment.”

“Want him to hang it  _ here _ .”

“I know, sweetie, but he needs pretty things over there, right?” She gave her daughter a poke that got a reluctant giggle out of the still-sniffling child. She knew. She understood. Elicia hated Roy’s apartment as much as she and Maes did, because it was  _ separate _ . If Roy had the apartment, it still felt like he was only half with them, like they were still in that odd place they’d been in at the beginning when he’d been Maes’ before he’d been theirs and when Roy had been so reserved with her, because she’d been more Maes’ than his.

But appearances had to be kept, she thought with the familiar irritation and resignation. Their relationship wasn’t illegal, but it wasn’t exactly embraced either. Between anti-fraternization laws and Roy’s goal of becoming Fuhrer, it wasn’t something they could risk becoming public. Riza knew and she thought the rest of Roy’s team at least  _ suspected _ , but they’d never bothered to verify and no one had ever been hostile to them.

Slowly, Elicia began to calm down as her sniffles faded off, traded out for calm breaths that deepened as she fell back asleep. Gracia kept hugging her for a while, watching as the minute-hand on the clock ticked past the midnight point and further. She settled Elicia back onto her bed before she got to her feet, smoothing her hand over her daughter’s hair. Elicia slept on, curled around the bear Roy had bought her when he’d been transferred to East City.

Maes finally came home just before one and well past the point that Gracia had been beginning to worry. He barely even seemed to notice her as he came inside – didn’t kick off his shoes at the door like normal, didn’t hang his keys on the hook – but his eyes were roaming in that way that felt familiar. Tense. Unsure.

Maes got like that sometimes, haunted by the memories of Ishval and too many years of military service. He’d come home, tense as a bowstring, and keep his eyes out for weak points. Those were the nights the curtains were drawn long before the sun went down and he slept with one of his knives on the nightstand.

It was another one of those nights, she thought, as he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on Roy’s hook instead of his own.

She made sure to step on the creaky spot to alert him of her presence and knocked on the doorframe lightly as a final measure. “You’re late,” she said needlessly. “I was worried.” He didn’t move to sweep her up in a hug like he usually did after a long day and she frowned. “Maes?”

“I had a lot of work to do,” he said, more of a brushoff than anything. It wasn’t odd, she told herself. Regardless of his tone, neither of the boys liked burdening her with the harsher sides of their jobs.

“Well, you missed me putting Elicia back down,” she told him. “She had a nightmare.”

He hummed softly, but he didn’t make like he was going to check on Elicia. “I’m going to bed,” he said decisively, and he kissed her cheek when he went by her, but that was it. No checking that Elicia was okay. No sneaking in to give her a kiss that would probably just wake her up all over again.

She watched him move down the hall to the open door of their bedroom and felt something uneasy settle in her stomach.

She didn’t sleep well that night.

By morning, she’d nearly convinced herself she was making a big deal out of nothing. Just because Maes had fewer bad days than Roy didn’t mean he didn’t have them at all. Just like Roy had days when he didn’t want to be touched and retreated back to his own apartment, there were times that Maes closed himself off from everything. They weren’t coping mechanisms she  _ loved _ , but she knew they were what made each of them feel safe, at least, for a little while.

He’d had a long day, she told herself again as she poured her second cup of coffee and hoped it would help to level her out. He’d gone to work early and left late. It was fine.

She left her mug on the table when Elicia called for her and watched as Maes moved through to the kitchen and took a drink from the mug. It wasn’t… Maes had bought her a maroon striped mug years ago, because he had the worst habit of grabbing hers by mistake and cringing about how much sugar she added. The mug had been meant as a joke, but had morphed into her morning mug for when they were all still half asleep and following caffeine cravings.

Maes took a second sip from it and didn’t flinch. “I’m heading into the office. I’ll see you tonight,” he told her with a little wave before he headed out the door.

He didn’t kiss her goodbye. He hadn’t given Elicia her usual hug. He hadn’t hemmed and hawed about actually having to leave them to go in after he’d spent so much time away yesterday.

“Mommy, is Daddy mad?” Elicia asked beside her, eyes stuck on the door Maes had disappeared through and looking sad.

“It’s just work, baby,” she assured her and wished she couldn’t hear the uncertainty in her own voice.

He seemed to level out somewhat as the days went on. Roy’s transfer went through, but he didn’t make it over like they’d hoped, too buried in the upheaval of everything else to slip away. Maes didn’t hang around the new apartment to bother him while he unpacked.

She wanted to keep telling herself that it was just work, that there was something going on at the office that was distracting him, but his doting didn’t feel genuine and he moved around her like he didn’t want to touch.

She cooked one of her mother’s recipes that night – the slow-roasted lamb with the Drachman spices Maes hated, because he couldn’t handle the heat – and he ate it without complaint. Without even a joking whine that she was torturing him and that he needed a pitcher of water for every bite.

He just ate.

It wasn’t Maes, she realized with a dawning horror she had to hide behind a mouthful of lamb and a smile. It wasn’t her husband who she’d been sleeping next to.

It wasn’t her husband who was sitting next to her daughter.

The lamb turned to ash in her mouth.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> This series may be my fault, but I'm still not sorry for it.


End file.
